missing Christmas

photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos.com / Feverpitch

I have a confession to make.

It’s January 22nd, and my Christmas tree is still up.  I just haven’t been able to bring myself to put it away yet.

Advent and the 12 days of Christmas that follow have always been, by far, my absolute most favorite time of the year, but this year, I feel like I missed it.  There was so much crazy, so much heartache, so much that was just too much this winter…

…and so I missed it.

I missed the hope and the joy and the peace and the love and the sheer, beautiful wonder of Christmas.  Not because I wanted to – but because I didn’t know how not to.  The stillness, the quietness, the hope of Advent and Christmas – I just didn’t know how to find it this year, tho I knew I so desperately needed it.  I caught glimpses of it, here and there, but the true awe and wonder of it felt so very far away.

We’re sixteen days past Christmas now, but with the long, dark season of Lent less than four weeks away, I find I am not quite ready to turn off the twinkle lights and put my tree away.  I need the hope of the Christmas season, and the lights on this tree which remind me that hope is real and true.

That it has come.  That it is here.  And that it’s coming.

I cannot face another season of giving things up just yet.  I need this tree, for just a little while longer.

And so I am waiting a few more days.  I will likely put it away this weekend; I will box up the ornaments, put the lights away, and vacuum up the glitter from the tree skirt – and then I will live in the time that comes after Christmas, and try not to think about Lent too much just yet.

But tonight?  Tonight I’m going to listen to “In The Bleak Midwinter,” and look at my tree with its twinkling lights, and maybe – just maybe – I’ll find that I won’t be missing Christmas altogether after all.